I could've blinded him...

It doesn’t take much to render me useless in an emergency.  The sight of blood usually brings me to my knees…I don’t quite faint, but run around the room looking for things that will probably be useless in staunching the flow…like a piece of paper or tape measure.  Having these things to hand probably would be useful in other circumstances but in this particular case could have been seen as surplus to requirements.  

I’d often thought I could be a good doctor…but not in the ER..diagnosing ailments from my armchair is about as good as it gets!   In this case BH was doing absolutely nothing to warrant an  attack on himself....he was just lying there….sleeping!!  

As was usual at that time of night, I was reading the latest hardback from Jodie Picolt.  BH was deep in slumber, as was also usual for that time of night.  Despite the fact that the TV was blaring , the side lamp was on , he could often sleep through the thousand lorries rolling past our house as was usual for that time of night!!   

He always maintains that he is a very light sleeper…I beg to differ.  Often when I think we are being burgled, I will jump up brandishing a coat hanger shouting “Who’s there? Who’s there?”  He will open one eye blearily, uttering “Eh?”  He will be struggling into his moth eaten dressing gown, even though I’m half way down the stairs!  I often think his reluctance to interfere is in the hope that the burglars will kill me first giving him the opportunity to save his own life. 

On this occasion I really do think that he was in a deep sleep. The bedroom window had been open most of the day, as it had been warm and sultry, and I was reading. I heard a buzzing sound which is usually accompanied with flies or wasps.  BH is allergic to wasps as he had been stung by one several years earlier and suffered an allergic reaction.  He carries with him his adrenaline(which hasn’t been used yet) in case of a repeat.  I was watching said wasp fly about the room, while I was considering what to bash it with.  The book was a new one and I really didn’t want the squashed remains embedded on the book I had just begun.  All of a sudden the wasp flew above my head in the direction of BH so I reached out to swat it…however I obviously didn’t have a firm grip on the book and it flew out of my hand.  All of a sudden the significant other jumped up clutching his face and moaning 

“Ohhh…ughhh..ohh..ugg!” 

To be honest I have never seen him move so fast that at first I thought he was joking!  My initial reaction was to laugh, so I patted him on the back saying “Sorry, there was a wasp….” He was holding his eye and as he pulled his hand away, I could see his palm was filled with blood!  I jumped up and started running about the room..

”Oh my  god…sorry…sorry…sorry!”

I was looking for something so that he could push his eye back into its socket…or did I call an ambulance first?? I rushed into the bathroom with him following me…blood tricking down his face between his fingers. He looked in the mirror and as I peered over his shoulder I could see that in fact his eye was still in place but was closing and swelling rapidly.  I ran a facecloth under the cold water and gave it to him to place over his eye. By this time I was feeling guilty, ashamed and bereft.  I had damaged and maimed my love even though I hadn’t meant to.  

“Sorry…sorry..sorry” I moaned trying to keep the tears at bay.   

“Sorry…sorry…sorry!”   “

You didn’t do it deliberately!” he said.   And off he went to bed while I lay there crying.  I now know that I could never be a murderer…however, I found that fucking dozy wasp and hit it with my book.

We went out shopping the next day…BH with his black and bruised eye, and me, and  in the middle of discussing the benefits of larger strawberries to their smaller, more sweeter counterparts, in the fruit and veg section with about 1 million shoppers milling about,  he raised his hands to his face and shouted,

“Don’t hit me… don’t hit me”

…bastard!!!